On the third Saturday in May, generations of Baltimoreans marched onto the infield at Pimlico Race Course with their coolers in tow, an image that helped define the Preakness Stakes. No longer. The Maryland Jockey Club has unveiled enhanced security plans for the 138th Preakness Stakes in the wake of recent deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon. And coolers are among the casualties. Fans will be subject to electronic wand searches at all gates for the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes on May 17 and the Preakness on May 18. They will not be allowed to carry backpacks or duffel bags into the races and only smaller, see-through-plastic containers will be permitted. Other newly banned items include...

Related "Grand Prix of Baltimore" Articles

On the third Saturday in May, generations of Baltimoreans marched onto the infield at Pimlico Race Course with their coolers in tow, an image that helped define the Preakness Stakes.No longer.The Maryland Jockey Club has unveiled enhanced security plans...

Speeding race car tires may have blackened Baltimore's streets for the last time, as Grand Prix of Baltimore organizers announced Friday that calendar conflicts have doomed the event for the next two years.
Event organizer Race On LLC's top official...

If Sage Karam had not won those weekend go-kart races in Charlotte, N.C., as an 8-year-old, he might be getting ready for his final high school football season in Nazareth, Pa.
If Karam had not won the Skip Barber School Shootout in Sebring, Fla., five...

In 2008, Ed DeRosa witnessed the infamy of the Preakness infield — the passed-out partiers, the chucking of full beer cans into crowds and of course, the "Running of the Urinals," where drunken infielders ran down a row of portable toilets....

For Baltimore's emergency workers, the Baltimore Grand Prix Festival of Speed is more than a three-day party surrounded by shrieking Indy cars.
It's 40,000 to 80,000 people a day — many with medical issues, bad judgment or evil intent — jammed in by...

IndyCar drivers found a number of flaws during Thursday afternoon's track walk, their first up-close-and-personal look at the course for this weekend's inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix. The drivers brought up varying concerns, but nearly all agreed to take...

When race fans roll into town for the Baltimore Grand Prix this weekend, they can expect to find the Inner Harbor course lined with more than 1,200 recycling bins, and their drinks will be served in cups made of biodegradable corn instead of plastic.
The...

Roger Penske looked out his window in the Hyatt Hotel at the Inner Harbor and didn't believe was he was seeing.
It was Saturday and the grandstands along the Baltimore Grand Prix course were packed solid with fans.
"I was amazed at the...

Willy T. Ribbs is going back into retirement.
Ribbs, who became the first African-American to race in the Indianapolis 500 in 1991 and hadn't raced in an Indy car in 17 years, finished 13th out of 16 drivers in the Firestone Indy Lights event Sunday....

Sunday, at the Baltimore Grand Prix, Craig Hampson's mind was racing. See the headset the chief engineer of the Newman-Haas team was wearing? One voice screamed into Hampson's right ear; another one bombarded the left.
It was his job to digest it all,...

If there was one complaint about the Baltimore Grand Prix from IndyCar drivers Sunday, it was that the course could have used one more area where it was feasible to pass. The course was set up so that drivers had to be patient, and most of them were....

When he was growing up in Towson, JF Thormann could not, in his wildest fantasies, have imagined a day when downtown Baltimore would be turned into a IndyCar racetrack.
He did, however, frequently spend his afternoons and evenings pretending there was...

The Baltimore Grand Prix lurched toward its starting line Thursday as downtown was consumed by the chaos of last-minute preparations for the three-day event.
Wide-scale road closings began to take effect, preparing the race course along downtown...

The total cost of the downtown infrastructure improvements for the first Baltimore Grand Prix racing event came in more than $1.19 million under budget, according to city officials.The 15-month project, which repaved nine lane miles downtown and near...

Race organizer and promoter Jay Davidson said there were two reasons for the delay to the start of Friday's activities for the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix -- last week's weather, and giving Baltimore residents as much access to the roads as possible...

Some pressed against chain-link fences, straining for a better view of the hurtling cars. Others mingled in white tents, struggling to be heard over thundering engines. And an elderly woman perched on the edge of her car, craning for a better view of...

Sharon and Bill Reuter moved to Ridgely's Delight in 1986, before Ravens perched a few blocks away and before Camden Yards evoked anything more than a faded industrial past.When the city and state got serious about building a ballpark just across...

Having survived an earthquake and a hurricane last week, Baltimore Grand Prix CEO and president Jay Davidson joked that he was "waiting for the locusts."
What descended Friday amid the deafening roar of 180-mph Indy racecars along the 2.03-mile...

The Firestone Indy Lights car started the ontrack action on time Saturday morning and things were running smoothly, until a storm cloud passed over the Baltimore Grand Prix course around 10:30. Officials cleared the grandstands in anticipation of...

Among the tens of thousands of fans who came this weekend for the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix were a large number of racing rookies. They were attracted for a variety of reasons -- fast cars, a party atmosphere and the idea of supporting their...